“HUSTLE AND FLOW”:  Pimps, Whores, Johns – Summer Season for Political/Economic Prostitution:  Larry Summers [Chairman of the Federal Reserve];  Freshmen Congressmen:  Andy Barr[R-Kentucky]; Tom Cotton [R-Missouri]; Ann Wagner[R-Kentucky]; Patrick Murphy [D-Florida].

Many of you may have seen the wonderful independent film called  “Hustle And Flow”  about a pimp [Terrence Howard] who dreams of becoming a ‘rap singer’.

In the meantime,  he ‘hustles’ his ‘whores’ to make a living.

For me,  the following lyrics encompass the problems that we,  honest,  small-time American business people/citizens,  face in making a living when ‘the big boys’  like former  Clinton/Obama’s top economic advisor --Lawrence H. Summers  Larry -- ‘hustles and  pimps’ his way to the top job of—Chairman of the Federal Reserve [an unnecessary economic appendage distorting ‘free trade’].

The words go something like this:
  “You know,  it’s hard out to here for a pimp, 

   When he tryin’ to get this money for the rent”

In Sunday's  NYTimes  article,  (posted earlier)  describes the sly machinations of Larry  who goes from a ‘Harvard Economic Prof’ to Fed Chairman in just a few decades,   all the while ‘sucking up’ to Citibank,  JPMorgan,  Silicon Valley entrepreneurs,  and Washington policy makers – to be ‘ready for Fed Chairman’. 

  The excellent article written by Louise Story and Annie Lowrey entitled,  “The Fed,  Lawrence Summers, and Money” : goes into the omnibus of an avarice,  egregious political/economic  sycophant whose ambition is to accumulate a MIDAS TOUCH FOR MONEY and a ZEUS AMBITION FOR POLITICS ---- all the while –shuckin and jiving all the way through Wall Street after---get this:  after Larry  literally SCREWED THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND MAIN STREET by eliminating the Glass –Steagall Bill.

As an incidental note,  the Glass Steagall Bill HAD LIMITED THE NEFARIOUS ACTIVITIES OF JP MORGAN CHASE,  GOLDMAN SACHS,  LAZARD FRERE,  WELLS FARGO from creating a CHAOTIC DERIVATIVES MARKET.   We  subsequently learned what happened when the banks BECAME  HIS WHORES:

“For the Cadillacs and gas money spent

Will have a whole lot of BITCHES JUMPIN’ SHIP”  [my emphasis].

But Larry never ‘copt his FINANCIAL  F..KUP’!!   Like any good pimp, Larry:

“Gotta couple girl workin’ on the changes for ‘him’ [me]

But I gotta keep my game tight like Kobe 

On the game night

Like talkin’ from a girl don’t know no better,

  I know that aint’ right.”

Next Larry  Hustled and Flowed all the way from only 7million dollars to $39million or more doing the following pimpin:
--Harvard Economic Professor.

His family is replete with Nobel Prizes for Economy. 

Sidebar:  The study of “Economics” is a ‘close intellectual relative’ to ASTROLOGY.   The latter has greater PREDICTIVE CAPACITY.

-- In 2011 ‘he jumped on a money spree’.   His clock was ticking because he knew that the Fed Chairman for which he long ASPIRED would open up in early 2014 when Ben S. Bernake [only  Princeton Prof.]  would leave.

-- Multimillion dollar consultations for Citigroup;  Hedge Fund D. E. Shaw [ $5million];  Goldman Sachs;  JP Morgan Chase  [‘inveterate crooks’-on their 20^th Fed Indictment and still going..] and the ‘Exchange Company OMX’.

-- Two Start-ups charging ‘Shylock Interests’  [“Lending Club,” Square]—19-29% interest rate for borrowing money when money only costs less than 1 %.

You see Larry claims he is ‘concerned about the poor people who need the internet loans and legality of the rates’.

Clearly he is not concerned enough to lower the usurious interest rates.

Again Larry reminds of  Terence Howard [ playing the ‘pimp’],  singing these words:

“Done seen people killed, done see people deal

 Done seen people live in poverty with no meals

It’s messed up where I live but that’s  just how it is

 It might be new to you but it’s been like this for years.”

Larry is not alone.

  The article next to the one on Larry’s ‘pimping’ is about another group of Freshmen Monetary Whores entitled ,

“For House Freshmen, Panel Offers Seats of Plenty”,  written by Eric Lipton.

  Let me quote from the article:
Rep. Andy Barr[R-Kentucky] with LITTLE EXPERIENCE in the INTRICACIES OF WALL STREET was among the “LUCKY FRESHMEN TO SECURE a SEAT ON THE POWERFUL FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE”.

 

The panel is called  the "THE CASH COMMITTEE".

Barr has raised as much money this year alone from political action committees run by major banks,  credit unions, insurance companies, etc.

  In six months Barr,   a “novitiate political pimp/whore” [he and the other legislators work “both sides of the street”] was ‘bought off ‘ with 150,000 dollars. 

Barr hosted credit union lobbyists and executives in his House office and promised them that he would PROTECT A FEDERAL TAX BREAK WORTH  $500 MILLION A YEAR.

  No work.  No risk.  No American entrepreneurial spirit.  No jobs.  No sweat. 

This club of ‘Honest Congressmen’ include :
  Tom Cotton [R-Arkansas]:  $111,500

Ann Wagner [R-Missouri]-about $100,000

Seven Democratic Freshmen have raised more money than the Maxine Waters, [D-Calif.] who has a testy relationship with the bankers.

Mr and Ms. America:  if you  want to become rich in America –PLEASE DON’T WORK !!! 

DON'T BUILD A Business—JUST “HUSTLE AND FLOW” LIKE A PIMP and WHORES OF OUR POLITICAL LEADERSHIP.

  America  has BECOME ONE BIG WHOREHOUSE—THANKS TO OUR  CORRUPT BANKING SYSTEM,  CORRUPT POLITICIANS  AND A LAZY POLITICAL BODY .

  We will all become ‘Pimps/whores’ if nothing is done:

“You know it’s hard out here for a pimp

 When he tryin’ to get his money for the rent…

 It’s BLOOD SWEAT TEARS when it COME TO THE LICK

 I’m TRYIN' TO GET RICH ‘FORE I LEAVE up out It

 I’m tryin’ to have THANGS but its HARD FOR A PIMP

So I’m PRAYIN’ and I’m HOPIN' To GOD I…
 DON'T SLIP…. YEAH!”  

What do we SUCKERS WANT TO DO ABOUT THIS “PIMPIN/WHORIN”?

--NOT PAY YOUR TAXES?

--NOT ELECT CONGRESSMEN/SENATORS?

--CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION?

--THROW OUT THE BUMS?

--TAKE DOWN THE BANKS?

--TAKE YOUR MONEY OUT OF THE BANKS/CREDIT UNIONS?

I will end this blog with these words because I don’t think America is ready to do anything about our problems:
“Man,  It seems like I’m duckin’ dodgin’ BULLETS EVERYDAY

Niggaz hatin’ ON ME CAUSE I GOT girls on the tray

But I gotta stay PAID,  GOTTA STAY ABOVE WATER

Couldn’t keep up with my girls,  that’ when THINGS GOT HARDER…”

 

Then I realize it will take time before we suckers can get our act together.. we have no one to express our rage….

“Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too

You PAY THE RIGHT PRICE AND THEY'LL BOTH DO YOU…”

[It’s true for   Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Men, Women, LGBT, etc---WE ARE “Fu…D” !]

"Man,  these girls think we prove thangs, 

  LEAVE A BIG HEAD

  They come hopin’ every night,  they don’t end up bein’ 

DEAD….”

You know it’s hard out here for a PIMP…..”

  A WHOLE LOT OF BITCHES JUMPIN' SHIP!!!!!!"

Some more homework......http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/us/politics/for-freshmen-in-the-house-seats-of-plenty.html?pagewanted=all

homework
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/business/economy/the-fed-lawrence-summers-and-money.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

bit off topic but I like the theme,  Governor Rick Snyder calls himself one tough nerd,
http://www.timesdispatch.com/opinion/their-opinion/columnists-blogs/george-will/will-the-man-who-would-reinvent-detroit/article_5c36c2da-a914-559c-bd28-58a5755443c5.html

HUSTLE and FLOW is what comes to mind when I read these stories about congress, Larry Summers etc.....they need to clean up their acts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Cr0nP3k_p4

Memorandum to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan

From:  Agitprop Blogger-Sympathetic to Secular Turkey.

Subject: Serious Mistake!

Recent Arrest of Dozens of High Ranking Turkish Military Officers;  20 media journalists;  dozens of prominent academics and government critics….(see NYTimes earlier post)

Some of you who have been following my blogs in Turkey know very well that I am a very strong supporter of a secular state that was instituted close to 100 years ago by Mustafa Kamal.

  I have been tracking Erdogan since he was Mayor of Istanbul.

He was, in my opinion, a very good mayor- fair, industrious, and pro-business.   No issues were allowed in his tenure as mayor regarding religion.  He kept his Justice and Democracy Party –nice name for another variation of the ‘Islamic Brotherhood’—out of politics and everyone from the lowest working class to the elite made money.

  No mean feat in a country that had been extremely poor for decades,  rife with corruption and crony capitalism.

  Erdogan even became in public a major proponent of democracy in Turkey.   However,  clearly ‘democracy’ had a different meaning for Erdogan than from most enlightened world leaders.

 

What Erdogan meant by ‘democracy’ was a complete pre-emption of any secular reforms that could be instituted by the formidable Turkish military which had it’s genetic branding from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.    Ataturk was a senior officer in the post-Ottoman Turkish Army,  who had implemented a military coup in order to establish a secular Turkish nation,  bereft of religion or dogma.

However,  in the haste to ‘reform Turkey’,  Erdogan ‘encouraged’  his wife to wear a scarf over head.   This symbolic act ‘compelled’ millions of secular women in Turkey;  who, otherwise, would not have worn scarfs,  to appear in public as ‘muslim women’.

  Erdogan had always mistrusted the formidable Turkish Military which had in modern times carried out three military coups.

  To be more precise,  the number of Turkish Military coups is far more impressive and far more daunting than Erdogan realizes.

 From a cursory summary of Turkish military coups, one can garner the following ‘snapshot picture’:

• 1913 Ottoman Coup d’etat.

• 1960 Turkish Coup d’etat.

• 1971 Turkish Coup d’etat.

• 1980 Turkish Coup d’etat.

• 1997 Turkish Coup d’etat.

Therefore,  Erdogan who saw this impressive array of military coups,  decided to pre-empt the next one.   He arrested General Ilker Basburg,  former Chief of Staff of the military.   He sentenced him to a very stiff sentence of ‘life imprisonment’.

But one coup,  more or less, would not have disturbed many outside observers;  except for the fact that  Erdogan decided to imprison 20 prominent journalists [for 6-34 years] who had nothing to do with the military.   He went even further to imprison any academician or politician,  critical of Erdogan and/or his ‘muslim’ government.

Humanitarians around the world have described that jailing of lay officials and journalists as follows:
"It’s  impossible to talk about a justice system free of politics,  or public trust in justice".

Reporters Without Borders,  based in Paris,  has referred to Turkey as ‘the world’s biggest prison for reporters’ and ranked Turkey 154^th of 179 countries,  behind Iraq and Russia it its 2003 World Press Freedom Index.

As one might have expected, protesters went into the streets outside the prison complex of Siliviri,  a coastal town outside of Istanbul.

In my professional experience,  I think that Erdogan has made a very serious experience.   This is a country that is growing at a respectable GDP [over 2.5%] and is targeted for billions of dollars of foreign investments to build tunnels, bridges , and industrial parks.  Now,  Erdogan had in effect put the ‘fear of God’ into his people and into foreign investors who may have been pro-Turkey.

 

Military coups are not a very precise form of regime change, as we have seen in the recent events in Egypt.    At best,   most military coups are implemented as a way to clear the intended government of any potential problems—primarily corruption,  autocracy, and  political cronyism.   Most coups, are intended to allow a civilian who in principle is designated as ‘competent to run a government’ to become the new leader of the country.   In other words,   a military coup is intended to allow a new,  professional civilian to manage the new government.   Most sagacious military leaders do not want to lead the government because that is not usually their expertise nor their primary interest.

 

By pre-empting a military coup,   Erdogan has placed himself as more ‘hardened military target’ that must be ‘disposed of’ –one way or another.   In simple terms,   Erdogan placed himself,  unwittingly on a Death Sentence—with definite term limits.   Whatever he might have feared would happen in a coup, will probably happen more quickly in an ‘assassination attempt’.

That’s not something you might want to wish any leader.    But unfortunately,  for most ‘despots’,  which Erdogan has evolved into,  an attempt to co-opt political change—including military/civilian/ religious --- places him an extremely vulnerable position where he and his family could be in danger.

Erdogan did not prevent a military coup;  instead  he encouraged the junior officers in the military,  the radical civilian activists to change the way they orchestrated their respective modus operandi and opened it up to ‘Extreme Active Measures’.

Sidebar: Please read Active Measures by Alexander Court--  my closest buddy. 

It’s not a predicament I would want anyone who is serious in managing a ‘presumed democracy and secular state’ to be in.   When a government represses all measures of protest; then the most extreme methods of violence are utilized.

Prime Minister Erdogan , please let me remind of you the famous words of the greatest teacher of power,  Niccolo Machiavelli [ 1469—1527]:

“For it must be noted,  that men must either be caressed or else ANNIHILATED [my emphasis];  they will REVENGE THEMSELVES for small injuries,  but cannot  do so for great ones;  the injury, therefore,  that we do a man must such that we need not FEAR HIS VENGEANCE.”

  Remember Erdogan,  who are the constituents who are ready to KILL YOU:
Kurds; Secular Turks; Muslim Turks –Shi’ite,  Sunni,  Sufi;  students; journalists; business men; your SECURITY AGENCY; your military; and all the other world wide SECURITY SERVICES AND MILITARY SERVICES that find you INCONVENIENT.

  Congratulations,  Erdogan,  on signing  your death warrant!!!!